Sow a meadow full of annual wildflowers for a glorious show of colour, even on poor, gravelly soil. Try centaury (Centaurium erythraea), marigolds, corncockle, field poppies, larkspur, wild pansies and lovely red anemone-like pheasant's eye (Adonis annua). You'll find mixes of these and many other wildflowers already selected for you in seed packs in our garden centre: just choose the one that's best suited to your soil and situation.
Prepare the ground carefully just as you would for sowing any seed type, digging over the top few inches and removing weeds and large stones. You won't need to enrich the soil for sowing wildflowers, as they prefer a low-fertility soil. Break up any large lumps of soil and rake the surface into a fine tilth, the texture of breadcrumbs.
Then sow the seed thinly and evenly across the space: mixing it with silver sand before sowing will help you see where you've already sown. Rake again to mix the seed lightly into the top layers of the soil, and water in with a sprinkler. If the weather is dry, keep watering every day until the seedlings start to come up. You should have a spectacular display, buzzing with wildlife, within about eight to twelve weeks from sowing.
